Formula-1 2014 Season (New Turbo V6 Era)

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V6

The 2014 F1 season is going to be exciting as new Turbo V6 engine is introduced in F1 car instead of V8 engines and other changes are lower noses, narrow front wing, central exhaust, ERS package, drive-train changes. It marks a complete turnaround of the powertrain regulations, combined with further measures to limit aerodynamic downforce of the cars in an attempt to improve the overall efficiency of the cars.

2014 Drivers Line-up

Red Bull

Sebastian Vettel, Daniel Ricciardo

Drivers up and down the grid will have been straight on to their agents when one of the Red Bull seats became available, but ultimately it was Daniel Ricciardo who was chosen to replace Mark Webber as Red Bull opted not to rock a boat which seems set to claim its fourth straight championship double.

Ferrari

Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen

Felipe Massa's time at Ferrari has come to an end, and in stark contrast to Red Bull the team has opted to buck the trend of having a clear number one driver and instead put two of the biggest names in the sport together to lead its 2014 charge. Only one current F1 driver has won the title for Ferrari, and it's not long-time team leader Fernando Alonso…

Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg

Lewis Hamilton's switch from McLaren to Mercedes has proven to be a masterstroke, and with Nico Rosberg having already picked up two victories this season the team boasts one of the strongest line-ups with two proven race winners. The relationship appears to have remained good between the two despite often being close on track, and after major progress in 2013 the signs are good for Mercedes.

Lotus

Pastor Maldonado, Romain Grosjean

With Kimi Raikkonen's departure, Lotus is set to retain Romain Grosjean - who impressed towards the end of the season - and pair him up with Pastor Maldonado. Nico Hulkenberg had been in the running if the team could secure new investment from Quantum Motorsport, but in the end a deal stuttered and stalled, meaning it had to settle for Maldonado and his PDVSA sponsorship. A year ago the line-up would have been a risky one, but Grosjean has matured in the past 12 months and Maldonado has proven he can win races.

McLaren

Jenson Button, Kevin Magnussen

McLaren young gun Kevin Magnussen will fill Sergio Perez's seat next year after the Mexican got the boot in the lead up to the US Grand Prix. Perez joined just one year ago with high hopes and a 'multi-year deal', showing just how fickle Formula One can be. Jenson Button will remain at the team for another year while Perez's post-McLaren future is far from certain. Magnussen has plenty of pressure on his shoulders but has also shown he has the talent to succeed.

Force India

Nico Hulkenberg, Sergio Perez

Force India will boast another strong line-up in 2014, with Nico Hulkenberg being joined by Sergio Perez in an all-new pairing, Hulkenberg returns after a year at Sauber in 2013, while Perez comes in from McLaren and opens up "new opportunities" for the team in terms of sponsors from Latin America. Sutil has done a solid job on returning to the team this year and seems confident his future is secure, with the strongest link being Sauber.

Toro Rosso

Jean-Eric Vergne, Daniil Kvyat

Although Toro Rosso is known for being quick to discard drivers it doesn't think will make the grade, Jean-Eric Vergne has been given a third season with the team after closely matching Daniel Ricciardo. While Antonio Felix da Costa was the hot favourite to replace Ricciardo, Toro Rosso surprised many by opting for Daniil Kvyat instead. Kvyat - at 19 - will step up from GP3.

Sauber

Adrian Sutil, Esteban Gutierrez

It promises to be a busy close season for Sauber even with Adrian Sutil joining the team in what is effectively a straight swap as Nico Hulkenberg heads back to Force India. Esteban Gutierrez will stay on thanks to extended backing from Telmex, while Russian teenager Sergey Sirotkin is lined up for a test driver seat to help him secure a superlicense in 2014. Sutil's deal should bring some cash, but the bigger money is coming from Telmex and the Russians.

Williams

Felipe Massa, Valtteri Bottas

After a disappointing season for team and driver, Pastor Maldonado has gone searching for a drive elsewhere and Felipe Massa will take his place. Some of Maldonado's PDVSA millions will stay at the team, however, allowing it to keep the highly-rated Valtteri Bottas on board and bring in the experienced Massa. It should provide a stable mix for 2014 but only time will tell if the team can pull out of its nose dive in performance.

Caterham

TBC, TBC

Charles Pic signed a multi-year deal when he joined the team at the end of 2012 but he's hardly set the world alight and could yet find his seat under threat. Giedo van der Garde, however, has brought sponsorship and shown clear progress throughout the season, and with Heikki Kovalainen still close to the team and making appearances in FP1 it looks like being any two from the three currently on Caterham's books. That said, Kamui Kobayashi was rumoured to be at the Caterham factory in December and is believed to have $6 million to spend on F1 next season.

Marussia

Jules Bianchi, TBC

Times are hard for the majority of the teams on the grid so it's no surprise the backmarkers have to value drivers with funds so highly. Max Chilton has been fairly comprehensively beaten by Jules Bianchi so far this season and his seat looks in jeopardy after Bianchi was confirmed at the team in 2014. With Ferrari wanting Bianchi to have a second season with the same team it really could come down to the highest bidder getting the other seat.

V6

This year will see one of the biggest changes to Formula One's engine regulations in the history of the sport. Each car will have two fewer cylinders than last year, Energy Recovery Systems (ERS) will become integral to performance and turbocharging will be allowed for the first time since 1988. Yet the new V6 turbos will be nothing like what has gone before in Formula One and, best of all, nobody knows exactly what's going to happen.

The Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) we have become used to in recent years will be replaced by much more powerful units, recovering not just kinetic energy but also heat. Unfortunately, it gives us two more acronyms to learn before we go any further. First up is the Motor Generator Unit - Kinetic (MGU-K), which is similar to the KERS we've known in Formula One since 2009 but twice as powerful and capable of releasing energy for 10 times longer per lap.

The second part is Motor Generator Unit - Heat (MGU-H), which harvests less power than MGU-K but is of equal importance as it works directly with the turbocharger. MGU-H acts as a generator to absorb power from the turbine shaft and, therefore, recover heat energy from the exhaust gases. The electrical energy can be either directed to the MGU-K as extra power boost or to the battery for storage for later use. However, when acting as a motor, MGU-H is used to match the speed of the turbo to the engine and cut out turbo lag. The new ERS will produce 160bhp of the overall power (estimated to be around 760bhp), making it significantly more important to lap time than in previous years.

Reliability
There's no shying away from it, there will be a lot of reliability issues in 2014. The new engines represent a huge step into the unknown and there are only three weeks of on-track testing before the cars race for the first time in Australia. Things could get messy.

Fuel saving
In 2014 F1 cars will have to complete the same race distances as they did in 2013 but with just 100 litres of fuel. That's roughly 35% less than was used in 2013 (depending on the circuit) and presents a serious challenge for engineers. However, Taffin says it is not likely to see drivers coasting towards the end of races due to a lack of fuel.

Drivability
Turbo engines produce significantly more torque than naturally aspirated engines, but the delivery of the torque can lag behind the application of the throttle. One of the great challenges of the new power unit is to reduce turbo lag to near zero by using the MGU-H to power the compressor while the turbo reaches full boost.

Cooling
Although the engines are smaller this season the cooling requirements are much higher. Early images of the Renault Sport ENERGY F1-2014 power unit showed a huge intercooler to feed the turbocharger, plus extra cooling needed for the ERS. This will not be welcome news in the aero departments of the teams, where cooling means bigger radiators and bigger openings in the bodywork.

Unlocking performance
Although there was a development freeze on the old V8s, manufacturers were still tinkering with software last season to get as much performance as possible from the engines. Despite all the new hardware for 2014, once again it will be the software engineers pushing the boundaries all season long.

A level playing field
One of the most exciting aspects of the 2014 regulations is that it shifts the emphasis ever so slightly away from aerodynamics. For the first time this decade engine departments will have the opportunity to innovate and compete with one another over the coming years.

V10

Hi,
I am Mercedes Benz F1 Team Supporter. This year our car is atleast not that worse which we saw in last 3 years.
Reliability rocked on the First test at Jerez. Looking forward for the Next Pre Season test.

V6

yes, Mercedes engine showed good reliability covering 309 laps in 4 days test combined of customer cars(Force India, McLaren, willams) and followed by Ferrari 280 laps (F14 T, sauber, marrusia ) but Renault team had full of reliability issues and had nightmare in completing its testing process including championship winning team Rebull.

I think Bahrain test will be crucial for all teams to analyze there cooling arrangement of turbo units to maximum because of high temperature as Jerez test condition had low temperatures.

V6

Mercedes is being touted as the early 2014 favourite, but Ferrari is reportedly also ahead of the game as F1's new V6 era dawns.The German-language Speed Week reports that, when Ferrari-powered cars decelerated at the recent Jerez test, they sounded "very different" to their Mercedes and Renault-equipped counterparts.

Rumours in Italy say engine designer Luca Marmorini has devised an unique system that stops the flow of fuel when the driver is not accelerating, improving not only fuel consumption but also the effect of engine-braking. Also attracting attention at Jerez were Ferrari's airboxes and sidepods, amid suggestions the Italian marque is ahead of the game in the challenging area of cooling the all-new engine, turbo and energy-recovery systems.

When asked about the Ferrari layout, Mercedes' engine boss Andy Cowell told Auto Motor und Sport: "Cooling has become such an important issue, both for power and for the aerodynamics, so a lot of research has gone into this field."
Meanwhile, McLaren's Jenson Button has said he was impressed with how all the Mercedes-powered teams - including Force India, Williams and the Brackley based works outfit - have worked together in the new V6 era so far. "While we are here to fight each other as teams," he is quoted by the Mirror, "the more information we can share in the next weeks or months can really help us."So we are all in good shape if we continue like that," Button said.

V6

Feb.14 (GMM) World champions Red Bull could be on the market for a new engine supplier.

That is the belief of ex F1 team owner and boss Gian Carlo Minardi, whose former Faenza based team, now called Toro Rosso, is owned by the energy drink company.Out of troubled engine supplier Renault's four F1 partners, including Toro Rosso, the senior Red Bull team managed the least mileage of all at the recent Jerez test.

Minardi, however, observed that - officially - the Red Bull-owned teams are sending out messages of "tranquillity and calm" about what many others believe is a crisis."According to circulating information, the situation seems more difficult than that and not easy to solve," the 66-year-old wrote in a posting in Italian on his website.

"It seems that Red Bull are exploring a possible change of engine for 2015," added Minardi.

He said he has also heard that Renault, struggling to solve the obvious problems with its turbo V6 'power unit', has gone beyond the walls of its Viry factory and is now "shopping" around for technical fixes."That has practically never happened before as, quite rightly, Renault has always sought to preserve its technology," said Minardi.

"This news can only feed suspicions of structural problems in the engine that are not easy to solve in the short term.

"Obviously, I hope to be proved wrong as soon as the testing in Bahrain, but undoubtedly we are living through a chaotic time in Formula One," he added.

V6

McLaren's Kevin Magnussen believes driver talent will shine through a lot more in the latest generation of Formula One cars than it ever did in the V8 era.

This year downforce has been stripped from the cars and the drivers have significantly more torque to deal with from the new V6 turbo engines. Magnussen, who was quickest on the second day of testing in Bahrain, believes drivers will play a bigger part in registering quick laps this year.

"It really is a drivers' car; more than the old ones," he said. "With the blown diffuser [on the old cars] it became a little bit easy and on new tyres you were very much relying on the car and the set-up and the balance. This year it's more of a drivers' car and I think that's great.

"I think [you can make] more [of a difference] than last year. It's still going to be impossible to win in a car that's not able to win, but it's Formula One and it's man and machine and the drivers can make a bigger difference. It's a bit more difficult with more torque but I think that's quite obvious. With more torque it's going to be more tricky and you need more skill and sensitivity with the throttle."

On Thursday Magnussen lapped 2.6s shy of the pole position time in Bahrain last year, but believes there is more to come from the new McLaren.

"I wouldn't say I'm surprised. I think we'll go quicker than that and it's possible to go quicker than that. It won't take too long for this year's cars to quicker than the old ones. From now until Australia we will hopefully improve the car. We are in a good place but we still need to work very hard. But it's not looking too bad."

V6

videos of cars running on Bahrain track, sad to say but the V6 engines sounds is similar to motogp bikes especially mercedes engines sound like 1000cc bike.. ferrari and renault sounds seems to be ok ,really missing the sounds of V8 and V10 normal aspirated engines